Business Fortune
Urban Edge Network (UEN) was founded in 2021 in response to a longstanding gap in the sports media landscape. Its founders recognized that HBCUs and other underserved sports properties had passionate fan bases, compelling stories, and significant commercial potential, yet often lacked the media infrastructure and monetization opportunities available to larger programs. UEN was created to help change that by giving these institutions greater ownership of their content, professional distribution, and new opportunities to generate sustainable revenue.
Rather than simply building another streaming platform, UEN set out to create a broader sports media ecosystem connecting schools, athletes, fans, and advertisers. Today, its platform features live college sports, highlights, original programming, and an expanding schedule of games across partner conferences. The company describes its mission through a focus on expanding access, strengthening media value, and creating a better experience for sports fans.
At its core, UEN aims to ensure that historically overlooked sports communities have a meaningful place in the modern media landscape, with the infrastructure and commercial opportunities needed to turn their audiences and stories into lasting value.
Business Fortune spoke exclusively with Urban Edge Network’s founding member and Chief Revenue Officer, Hardy L. Pelt, about UEN’s mission to transform sports media through ownership, access, and monetization. The conversation explores the company’s streaming platform, strategic partnerships, advertising solutions, challenges, technology, and expansion across HBCUs, NAIA athletics, the NBA G League, women’s sports, and underserved sports communities.
Interview Highlights
Every growing company encounters challenges along the way. What have been some of the most significant obstacles Urban Edge Network has faced since its inception and what strategies, decisions or lessons helped you overcome them?
One of the biggest challenges was getting people to understand that we were not simply asking them to support a Black-owned media company. We were building a serious sports media and ad tech business with real distribution, real audiences, and real value for advertisers. In the beginning, some people could not see the opportunity because they were accustomed to doing business the way it had always been done. We had to prove ourselves one partnership at a time.
That experience taught me to stay focused on performance rather than perception. We invested in technology, strengthened our distribution, built relationships with credible sports organizations, and showed our partners that we could deliver a first-class product. Another important lesson was that you cannot be afraid to challenge outdated models. Sometimes the obstacle is not the technology; it is the mindset. We learned to keep moving forward, document our results, and let the work speak for itself.
Could you walk us through Urban Edge Network’s key products, platforms and services? What does the company offer to athletes, sports organizations, institutions, fans and advertisers?
At the center of UEN is a free, always-on streaming platform built around live and on-demand sports content. Our programming includes HBCU athletics, NAIA sports, NBA G League content and other emerging sports properties, with a strong commitment to women’s sports as well. Fans can watch across connected TV, mobile and digital platforms without having to navigate a paywall. For institutions and sports organizations, we provide the infrastructure to distribute games, create branded channels, expand audience reach and turn content into a revenue-generating asset. For athletes, that means greater visibility and more opportunities for their stories and performances to reach wider audiences. For advertisers, we provide access to passionate, highly engaged audiences through targeted digital and connected TV advertising, sponsorship integrations, branded content and live-event opportunities. We bring media, technology, distribution and monetization together on a single platform.
Urban Edge Network has built a platform around live sports and digital content across college athletics and other sports properties. How do you approach content creation, streaming and distribution and what makes the viewing experience distinctive for your audience?
Our approach starts with respect for the content and the audience. We want the games to look and feel important because they are important to the athletes, schools, families and fans watching. We combine live-event production with cloud-based technology that allows us to scale distribution across multiple platforms. We have also worked to enhance broadcasts with better data, statistics and storytelling, giving viewers more than just a camera pointed at the field or court. What makes the experience distinctive is that we do not treat these properties as filler programming. Instead, we build channels and experiences around communities that already have passion and loyalty. We also make access easy. A fan should be able to find the game on the device they already use, watch it for free and feel that the platform understands the culture, the school and the significance of the event.
Beyond streaming sports, how does Urban Edge Network help colleges, conferences, brands and advertisers reach and engage their audiences? What opportunities do your advertising, sponsorship and partnership solutions create for clients?
Streaming is only one piece of the business. The larger opportunity is helping our partners turn attention into measurable value. For schools and conferences, that can mean creating inventory around live games, championship events, coaches’ shows, highlights, branded segments, and other digital content. For brands and agencies, we can build campaigns around specific audiences, markets, and sports properties rather than relying solely on broad national media buys. Because we operate across digital and connected TV environments, we can use ad technology to make campaigns more targeted, flexible, and accountable. We also create sponsorship opportunities that feel natural within the programming, including presenting sponsorships, branded features, integrations, overlays, and original content. The goal is to build partnerships where advertisers receive meaningful engagement and institutions gain more than just exposure. Ultimately, the partnership should create economic value for both sides.
Of Urban Edge Network’s current offerings, which would you say has had the greatest impact on your audience and partners and what sets it apart in today’s competitive sports-streaming and digital-media landscape? What unique value does it provide to the people and organizations you serve?
I would say the greatest impact comes from the combination of free access and ownership-driven distribution. HBCU+ helped prove that there was a meaningful audience for HBCU sports when the content was easy to find and easy to watch. As UEN expanded into NAIA athletics, the NBA G League, and additional sports properties, that same principle continued to work: give great competition a professional platform and remove unnecessary barriers for fans. What sets us apart is that we are not trying to force underserved sports into a model designed for someone else. We are building the infrastructure around the needs of these institutions and their audiences. The value comes down to visibility, control, and monetization. Fans get access. Athletes get exposure. Schools and conferences gain a stronger media asset. Advertisers gain authentic access to communities that are loyal, engaged, and often difficult to reach through traditional sports media buying.
Strong relationships are essential in the sports and media industry. How does Urban Edge Network build and maintain long-term relationships with its clients, institutional partners, advertisers, and sports organizations? What principles guide your approach to client satisfaction and successful partnerships?
For me, relationships start with doing what you say you are going to do. Sports and media are relationship-driven businesses, but those relationships only last when there is trust behind them. We try to understand what success looks like for each partner rather than assuming every school, conference, or advertiser needs the same thing. Sometimes the priority is audience growth. Sometimes it is revenue, recruiting, brand visibility, or making sure alumni can watch games from anywhere in the country. We listen first and then build around each partner’s needs. We also believe in transparency. If something is working, we share it. If something needs to improve, we address it directly. Long-term partnerships are not built on one press release or one big event. They are built by showing up consistently, solving problems, and making sure both sides can point to real progress as a result of the relationship.
Looking ahead, what is your vision for Urban Edge Network over the next three to five years? Are there particular markets, technologies, sports properties, partnerships or audience segments that you hope to expand into?
Over the next three to five years, I see UEN becoming one of the most important independent sports media and advertising platforms in the country. We want to continue expanding our footprint across NAIA athletics, HBCUs, the NBA G League, women’s sports, and other properties that have strong audiences but have not always received the distribution or commercial attention they deserve.
Technology will play a major role in that growth. We are focused on smarter ad delivery, better audience data, enhanced live statistics, more personalized viewing experiences, and tools that help our partners understand and monetize their audiences more effectively. We also want to continue expanding our distribution so that UEN is available wherever fans watch television and sports.
Ultimately, our goal is to achieve scale without losing our purpose. We can grow nationally and globally while remaining committed to ownership, access, inclusion, and creating economic value for the communities whose content drives the platform.
Under the Leadership of Hardy L. Pelt
Hardy L. Pelt is a founding member and Chief Revenue Officer of Urban Edge Network. His career in sports began in 1988 with the Orlando Magic, and over the years, he has built extensive experience in professional sports, corporate partnerships, sponsorship sales, media, and revenue strategy. He also served as Vice President of Corporate Sales and Services for the Golden State Warriors. At UEN, Hardy leads revenue growth, strategic partnerships, advertising and sponsorship development, and the company’s broader commercial strategy. His work focuses on creating sustainable media value for HBCUs, NAIA institutions, the NBA G League, and other sports properties that have historically been underserved by traditional media models.
Among UEN’s key milestones are major media rights and streaming partnerships, expanded national distribution, relationships with technology and data companies, and the growth of free live sports programming across digital and connected TV platforms. Hardy’s leadership philosophy centers on ownership, economic inclusion, and innovation. He is committed to demonstrating that underserved audiences are not niche audiences, but valuable and influential communities that deserve access to world-class media infrastructure.
